Thanks for the response.
Guess I will follow my normal philosophy and do nothing. The combined business seems like it can pay out 5% plus in dividends with growth possible from savings and cross selling

"Building brand awareness is a winning formula in many industries, as it tends to result in repeat sales, and the fund management industry is no exception.Behemoths such as Invesco Perpetual and M&G have dominated in terms of fund sales over the ..."

Any theory would be guesswork, but it strikes me that the combined group must be worth more than the sum of its parts; and I have been surprised that since the merger was announced, the share price has not reacted very much at all. As the merger is approaching I think markets are waking up to the idea and realising both entities should be worth a bit more.

Well that shows the idiocy of pure technical analysis without any understanding of what is actually happening with the business. He's basing his whole future predictions on the share price movements. The fact that it is merging in 2 months times and so will be a different business never gets a mention.

"Aberdeen Asset Management (LSE:ADN)One of the great pleasures of long daylight in Scotland comes from two purple lights in a box. Evenings are punctuated with sharp "cracks" when midges immolate themselves.We fear rather a few investors face a ..."

" Aberdeen Asset Management (LSE:ADN) One of the great pleasures of long daylight in Scotland comes from two purple lights in a box. Evenings are punctuated with sharp "cracks" when midges immolate themselves. We fear rather a few investors ..."

It will always happen with a big merger like this - one of the attractions being savings of overhead services; but for the major part I am sure there will be a large proportion which are voluntary; and the terms will be generous.

Mind you, looking for a job in an independent bankrupt Scotland may not be much fun.

Aberdeen Court Meeting 1.00 p.m. on 19 June 2017
Aberdeen General Meeting 1.05 p.m. on 19 June 2017(5)
Standard Life General Meeting 2.00 p.m. on 19 June 2017

Aberdeen Court Hearing to sanction the Scheme 11 August 2017(6)(7)
Last day of dealings in, and for registration of transfers of, and disablement in CREST of, Aberdeen Ordinary Shares 11 August 2017 (6)

Suspension of listing of, and dealings in, Aberdeen Ordinary Shares 5.00 p.m. on 11 August 2017(6)
Scheme Record Time 6.00 p.m. on 11 August 2017(6)

Effective Date 14 August 2017(6)
Admission and commencement of dealings in New Shares on the London Stock Exchange by 8.00 a.m. on 14 August 2017
Issue of New Shares and crediting of New Shares soon after to CREST accounts as soon as possible after
8.00 a.m. on 14 August 2017 (6)
Delisting of Aberdeen Ordinary Shares 14 August 2017 (6)"

Unfortunately the five year charts don't look good for quite a number of well known shares - take a look at big oil, resources, energy, tesco et al.
Human nature dictates that an owner of these shares five years ago seeing the SP halve in price will be unlikely to benefit from the inevitable recovery, either selling at a loss or recovering losses for a long period of time. The hardest concept for me is selling a share when it is on a downward trend, particularly if it is showing an increasing book loss.
I saw Aberdeen as a recovery opportunity but bought in for the first time a few months ago. Long term holders will be looking at this share the same way I view Royal Mail.
I am looking for £3 in the near future and we have already been there. Iff you are looking for £5 twill be a long wait.

Hardboy,
You don't need 2 Ceo's with 2 fat pay packets to oversea a merge, most companies manage with 1! The performance of Aberdeen in a rising stock market over last 2/3 years has been terrible. Massive outflow of funds under management and terrible fall in the share price of 50%. Has Martin Gilbert had a 50% drop in his pay packet to mirror performance of the companies share price? Or was he rewarded with more discounted exuctive pay share options? Have to wait and see what happens staff.

Eh? Are you suggesting that that's OK? What that says to me is that all the money which was invested in ADN shares (as opposed to their individual funds) would have been better invested in a FTSE tracker over that period!

In other words it would have been better for ADN shareholders if the company had ceased to exist five years ago and they had slapped their wad into Vanguard or had a crack at running their own money in individual shares and done slightly worse than the FTSE100!

Pretty poor performance by ADN. Gilbert's done fine out of it but individual ADN shareholders? .... not so fine.

"However, the two ceo's keep their fat pay packets and duplcate their jobs !"

If you'd bothered to read my Bloomberg post, you would know they are not duplicate jobs, but 2 distinctly separate jobs - one running the day to day business, the other managing the integration of the 2 entities.

"happily sacrifice the minions" I imagine redundancy terms will be very good; and probably the vast majority, if not all, will be voluntary or early retirement - which may well suit all the individuals concerned.

"they have kept their jobs with such poor performance for investors especially at Aberdeen imho" I suppose that depends how you measure performance of top people - I assume you mean Martin Gilbert. If, as I guess, you are looking at shareholder returns - he's not done a bad job - after all he built the company from the start. Even the last 5 years (where the impression is share price returns have not been good) it is only just beneath the FTSE 100; and I am sure if dividends were factored in it would be a lot closer if not better. I couldn't go any further back using iii graphs. Yes the share price has had its ups and downs - largely in harmony with the sector - and one couldn't say it has been an unqualified success, but not a bad job in comparison with other FTSE companies.

Of course if you bought at the highs in 2015 judging his performance over 2 years or whatever - it looks poor, but any share price can look great or poor if you choose the timescales appropriately.

trough, the two companies will merge alot of functions and shed staff to save costs. However, the two ceo's keep their fat pay packets and duplcate their jobs ! Amazing how the people at the top look after themselves and happily sacrfice the minions imho! Fat cats alive and well in Scotland ! Amazing they have kept their jobs with such poor performance for investors especially at Aberdeen imho

Yes, Hardboy - share back to the top of its range before the news broke.
Expected it to hold on to £2.90 - disappointing.
One can hope that the synergy with Standard will prove the current price an absolute bargain.
Kicking myself for missing the sell opportunity at £3.10!

Martin Gilbert was on Bloomberg this morning - his normally relaxed self. He was saying how good the deal was in the long run - they think there will be at least £200m saving from synergies; and that the 2 CEOs' duties would be split over the next 2-3 years, one managing day to day, the other managing the integration.

The market seems seriously underwhelmed at the prospect of this rather boring merger - could it be that some other bidder might emerge to take an opportunistic swipe at ADN and open the door to a more exciting bid premium?

I certainly hope so, because I cannot see how this will be a very rewarding transaction for the ADN shares as things stand.

Our view: Both Keith Skeoch and Martin Gilbert have always been clear that their ambitions were to run world-class investment companies and that this would be achieved through continued investment in diversification and growth, coupled with a sharp focus on financial discipline. Yesterdays merger is positive news for their clients, bringing together the strong and reasonably complementary investment capabilities of each firm to tackle the challenges facing UK active managers, while re-positioning the business to meet the evolving needs of clients and customers. It brings financial strength, diversity of customer base and global reach to help ensure the enlarged business has the cost structure to compete effectively on the global stage. Indeed, when Beaufort analysts last met with Martin Gilbert at the end of November 2016, they were left with the impression that a sizeable transaction was being cooked, although their guess was that it was going to be a value-creating merger or acquisition of a sizeable US-based asset manager with significant management of Treasuries and other fixed income instruments. Beaufort also believed that such a deal would be sufficient to allow Aberdeen to retain its current dividend, which is key considering the shares were largely being recommended on the basis of income. Hence its decision to retain its Buy recommendation. Yesterdays news was not exactly of this shape. In fact, one might even suggest the two Scottish operations are embracing one-another due to weaknesses inherent in both their core franchises, with both suffering consecutive quarterly outflows across all asset classes (Aberdeen has had no less than 15 in fact) and poor relative returns. Whether it will be possible to reverse this trend, particularly given investors rising preference to buy index, rather than managed funds, is not clear. Ramming such similar operations together, however, will clearly accrue major cost synergies, with a 25% to 26% reduction in Aberdeens cost base allowing 2018E earnings to spike by an estimated 14% net, having assumed an accompanying hit on revenues during the period. A combined group free cash flow of around £900m/year should also provide comfort for those seeking good income visibility going forward. Aberdeen shares have, however, spiked quite sharply upward over the past month, presumably with increasing investor hope of a significant deal being announced in the relatively near-term. What they got yesterday was good, but it could have been better. Early celebrations, on details of the proposed dividend payments and possible cost savings faded somewhat, however, with shareholders recognising that those holding Aberdeen in the hope of holding-out a speculative take-over premium are now going to be disappointed and that the larger group emerging from this deal will still have many of the same fundamental problems that exist in separate entities. Having touched its 310p/share price target yesterday, Beaufort downgrades Aberdeen asset management from Buy to Hold.

The name is a diffcult one - my vote is Standard Life. Standard Aberdeen will be laughed at forever and Aberdeen Standard has the wrong priority so will not endure IMO.

Anyone who sold out yesterday at around £3.10 or whatever the SP got to made a very good decision. Opportunity now to buy back in at significant discount.

The potential for recovery in emerging markets has not gone away and neither has the risk of further depression. I think Standard Life and Aberdeen have picked the right time to get married and hopefully onwards and upwards from here.

jaxonsax: "switch a 7% yield for a 5% yield with no compensating premium ?

also - SL is cum div (13.35p) ADN is ex div - so other things being equal when standard life goes XD in april ADN equiv price would be more like 276 (all based on fridays close prices of course)

possibly an interim ADN divi in the final negotiated position to compensate? (hopefully)"

Here is an extract from RNS that answers this:

"Under the terms of the Merger, Standard Life and Aberdeen have agreed that:

&#61600;&#61600;&#61600;&#61600;&#61600;&#61472;Standard Life Shareholders will be entitled to receive the proposed final dividend of 13.35 pence per Standard Life Share for the six month period ended 31 December 2016, scheduled to be paid on 23 May 2017 (subject to approval at the Standard Life Annual General Meeting); and

&#61600;&#61600;&#61600;&#61600;&#61600;&#61472;Aberdeen Shareholders will be entitled to receive an interim dividend of up to 7.5 pence for the six month period ended 31 March 2017, scheduled to be paid in June 2017 (subject to approval by the Board of Aberdeen). "

Yes, I think the Romans got a bit cocky with the offside rule up front which Hannibal promptly ignored and went wide in a 'crescent' manoeuvre and wrapped them up. Back at HQ, things looked a bit grim so they appointed Fabius Maximus. He realised it was a probably a better idea to use brains rather than brawn and sent out skirmishers to frustrate the Carthaginian forces with kiss and run tactics until they became so confused they lost the plot, got bored and turned to looting and other petty demeanours before being finally kicked out. The Romans got their own back in an away match on North African turf under Scipio 'Africanus' who shamelessly adopted their tactics and promptly beat them at their own game. Funny old world.

Back on topic, do the cracks in the 'granite city' stop there or is this a sign of wider issues I wonder?

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